Chapter 11: The Finishing Blow
Seeing the barrier disappear and the situation take a turn, Xie Bailu didn’t waste any time. She hurried over, but cautiously avoided touching the basin.
The basin was only slightly larger than a normal washbasin, but it seemed to be made of bone, with visible seams on its surface.
She refused to think about what kind of bones they were and peered inside.
The basin was filled with bones. The more recognizable ones were a skull, a leg bone, and a pelvis. There was also the skeleton of an unformed infant. All the bones were steeped in black qi.
Seeing this, Xie Bailu felt even less of a psychological burden for having killed the evil cultivator’s disciple so cleanly. It could only be said that he had gotten his just deserts.
Xie Bailu asked, “Xiao Xing, what do I do?”
Xiao Xing hopped out of the Five-Star Cauldron, seemed to look up at the sky, then down at the basin, and said to Xie Bailu, “Those two are fighting fiercely. This evil array has been weakened quite a bit. Do you see that black bead at the bottom? Just take it out.”
Xie Bailu looked closely and indeed saw a pure black bead at the bottom of the basin. Unlike the surrounding black qi, this bead looked crystal clear and didn’t exude any evil aura.
She found a stick from the ruins, pushed the bones in the basin aside to reveal the black bead, and then used two wooden planks to clamp it out.
Almost at that instant, Xie Bailu felt a certain sensation.
Xiao Xing said, “Yay, the evil array is broken!”
Xie Bailu was a little dazed. “It was that simple?”
Xiao Xing said, “The people in the array are all mortals. The evil cultivator didn’t need to set up complex defenses. Besides, if that madman hadn’t broken the barrier just now, you wouldn’t have been able to break the array either.”
Xie Bailu knew that was true. From the result, it had indeed been very smooth, but if it had been someone with a similar cultivation level to her, things would have turned out differently.
Xie Bailu glanced up at the sky. The two were still fighting. She decided to hurry to the village entrance and tell the villagers to run, to get as far away from here as possible. But just as she turned, Xiao Xing said, “Hey, wait, take that black bead with you! It should be a condensed core left by some kind of demon after it died. It might be useful.”
Xie Bailu asked cautiously, “It won’t infect me with anything dirty, will it?”
Xiao Xing said, “If you’re worried, wash it with spiritual energy!”
Xie Bailu didn’t wash it. She wrapped the condensed core in a piece of cloth torn from her old clothes and stuffed it into her storage bag, then ran towards the village entrance.
Some people had already discovered they could leave. Some had run away quickly, but others were still hesitating.
Xie Bailu urged them, “Go! Don’t come back until those two are done fighting!”
The remaining villagers then ran off at top speed.
In truth, Xie Bailu had already done more than enough by not informing the villagers. But she wanted to see things through to the end. And most importantly, the spiritual sense imprint Ling Song had left on her was gone. If she used the Divine Movement Art to escape now, he would never be able to find her again. So she didn’t need to be in too much of a hurry.
Xie Bailu confirmed, “Xiao Xing, help me check. Did Ling Song leave another spiritual sense imprint on me?”
After all, Ling Song had been in close contact with her after the spiritual sense imprint was erased.
Xiao Xing checked carefully and said excitedly, “No! You’re clean now! We don’t have to worry about him catching up to us anymore!”
A smile finally appeared on Xie Bailu’s face. The days of being chased like a dog were finally over! Although it had been less than five days, it had felt as long as a century to her!
She immediately began to perform the hand seals, wanting to leave this place at once.
Xiao Xing cried out, “Ah!”
Xie Bailu paused and looked up, as if sensing something. She saw that the two in the sky had already determined a winner. The Nascent Soul evil cultivator’s Nascent Soul was directly pulled out of his Violet Mansion by Ling Song’s hand and crushed with a gentle squeeze.
Xie Bailu let out a gasp similar to Xiao Xing’s. “Ah!”
Didn’t Ling Song use a sword before? Why did he use his bare hands this time?
Despite her confusion, Xie Bailu’s hand seals became even faster. Ling Song was done fighting, which meant she was next. If she didn’t run now, she was finished!
But to her surprise, after crushing the Nascent Soul evil cultivator’s Nascent Soul, Ling Song fell from the sky, landing less than a hundred feet away from her with a loud crash, kicking up a large cloud of dust. For a long time, there was no movement.
Ling Song seemed to have fainted, or perhaps he was dead.
The hand seals slowed down. Xie Bailu said, “I want to go take a look.”
Xiao Xing was speechless. “…!!”
It didn’t know what had gotten into Xie Bailu.
It said in shock, “Are you addicted to saving people? Saving mortals is one thing, but saving him? Don’t think he’ll be grateful! The first thing he’ll do when he wakes up is kill you!”
Xie Bailu was equally shocked. “Do you think I have no brain? I want to deliver the finishing blow! If he’s really dead, then I won’t have to live in fear anymore, right?”
The spiritual sense imprint was gone. She could indeed relax for a while, but the Five-Star Cauldron was in her hands, and Ling Song would definitely continue to look for her. That would be a sword hanging over her head at all times. Of course, she should take this opportunity to end it once and for all.
The evil cultivator was dead anyway, so there were no witnesses! If the Ling family came looking in the future, they would be more likely to think Ling Song and the Nascent Soul evil cultivator had taken each other out.
No one would think that a Foundation Establishment cultivator like her could kill Ling Song. Besides, she might not even appear in the Ling family’s line of sight, as long as the Teng family and the rogue cultivators from the Eye Demon’s domain didn’t go around talking.
Even if they did, it didn’t matter. She had only said her name was Xie Hong. She could just use a different fake name in the future.
The more Xie Bailu thought about it, the more feasible it seemed. She cautiously slowed down her hand seals, maintaining the premise of the Divine Movement Art being ready, and slowly walked towards where Ling Song had fallen.
The first thing she saw was the Nascent Soul evil cultivator’s body. Xie Bailu paused, looked at his waist, and said to Xiao Xing, “Fetch me his storage bag.”
Xiao Xing was speechless. “…?” Fetch? Am I a dog?
But seeing that Xie Bailu had to maintain the hand seals, it could only hop over, forcibly manifest a hand, take the storage bag, and hop back, tying it to Xie Bailu’s waist.
Then, the human and the artifact spirit continued forward, neither daring to make a sound.
When Xie Bailu was about a zhang away from Ling Song, she didn’t dare to get any closer.
Ling Song was in an even worse state than before, covered in blood and dust, his eyes closed, his breathing faint, as if he could die at any moment.
At this moment, he seemed to be just a handsome, heavily injured cultivator who elicited pity, without the terror he exuded when he was awake.
Xiao Xing said softly, “Why don’t we just go? He looks like he could stop breathing at any moment.”
Xie Bailu was also a little hesitant. After being chased by Ling Song so many times, this opportunity to reverse their positions was hard to come by. If she couldn’t be sure he was dead, she would live in constant anxiety of being caught.
She overcame her fear and said, “What if he recovers on his own in a little while? I don’t want to miss such a good opportunity.”
So, she continued to walk forward, always maintaining the hand seals, while keeping her eyes fixed on Ling Song, not daring to miss any of his subtle movements.
Just as Xie Bailu got to within a meter of Ling Song and was about to give up the hand seals and take out her dagger to deliver the killing blow, the man in front of her, who had looked so lifeless with his eyes closed, suddenly opened them.
Xie Bailu and Xiao Xing let out similar screams of terror. “Ahhhhhh!”
At the same time, Xie Bailu’s hands moved quickly to complete the Divine Movement Art, and she disappeared in a flash of white light.
When she landed, she realized her heart was pounding wildly. She asked Xiao Xing again, “Is there a spiritual sense imprint on me?”
Xiao Xing confirmed again, “No!”
But Xie Bailu still forced herself to use the Divine Movement Art one more time, changing direction to get even farther away from Ling Song.
She was finally exhausted. Xie Bailu quickly sat down to meditate and recover her spiritual energy.
Thinking of the shock and fear she had felt when Ling Song had suddenly opened his eyes as she approached him, Xie Bailu finally understood why the main characters in horror movies never delivered the finishing blow.
Although the horror boss was lying there, seemingly unconscious, an ordinary person like her really couldn’t withstand the psychological terror of feeling like the other person could spring up at any moment.
Remembering the strange sight she had just seen, Xie Bailu said, “Xiao Xing, did you notice that when Ling Song opened his eyes just now, they were blood red?”
Xiao Xing thought back carefully. It had been too scared to notice at the time, so it gave what it thought was a reasonable explanation. “He was beaten up?”
Xie Bailu didn’t think so. A bloodshot eye couldn’t be so uniformly red, with even the whites of the eyes being completely red.
But Xiao Xing hadn’t seen it, and she had no common sense, so it was impossible to know what was going on. She didn’t think about it anymore.
After recovering her spiritual energy, Xie Bailu was finally able to sort through her spoils of war. That Nascent Soul evil cultivator was a Nascent Soul! His storage bag must be full of treasures, right? She just hoped there was something she could use.
Before opening it, she said to Xiao Xing, “Helping people really does bring good fortune.” If she had just run away, she wouldn’t have been able to pick up this leak. It was because she had insisted on staying to help the villagers that she had gotten the evil cultivator’s storage bag.
Xiao Xing was confused. “…?”
Xie Bailu ignored it and happily poured out the contents of the storage bag. She first collected the spirit stones as usual. The spirit stones piled up like a small mountain in her storage bag. She was a rich woman now, wasn’t she? No wonder so many people liked to kill for treasure. The rewards were too great.
Xie Bailu composed herself, not letting the sudden windfall go to her head.
First, she had only killed in self-defense, and taking the treasure was just a side benefit. She wouldn’t kill indiscriminately in the future. Second, with her cultivation level, she was lucky not to be the one being robbed.
Xie Bailu continued to look. There were three bottles of pills. She could tell one was for healing, probably a better quality one, but she didn’t recognize the others.
Xiao Xing said one bottle contained poison, which seemed to be quite potent, and the other was a Rejuvenation Pill.
Xie Bailu was surprised. “For returning to youth?”
Xiao Xing said, “No, it’s what you human cultivators use to… stay hard.”
Xie Bailu was speechless. “…???” That Nascent Soul evil cultivator was impotent!
She threw the entire bottle of Rejuvenation Pills away.
But after a moment’s thought, she picked it back up. She wouldn’t use it herself, but she could sell it for money.
There weren’t many magical treasures in the storage bag. Xiao Xing said this evil cultivator had used up a lot of magical treasures in his fight with Ling Song, which was why Ling Song was in such a bad state. The remaining ones were not even strong enough to block for a moment. The time it took to take them out of the storage bag was longer than the time the magical treasure could block, which was why there were some left.
Xie Bailu had thought these weak magical treasures would be just right for her, but after looking for a long time, none of them were normal. She felt like she would be tainted if she used them. For her own safety, she had to give them all up.
The remaining miscellaneous items were worthless. So, Xie Bailu put the unwanted items back into the evil cultivator’s storage bag and dug a deep pit to bury it.
She didn’t lack spirit stones now, but she lacked a weapon.
In this relatively peaceful time, she thought of Qian Lang again. “Xiao Xing, do you think we can go back and find Qian Lang’s body?”
Qian Lang wasn’t an evil cultivator, and he was a rogue cultivator. His weapon didn’t have any obvious markings. She could use it!
Xiao Xing was speechless. “…Do you even remember where he died?”
Xie Bailu said, “…Fine, we’ll buy one.”
Since she no longer had to run for her life, she planned to go to a more prosperous place. The best way to hide was in a crowd. If she hid in a crowd, could Ling Song still find her?
“Let’s go to the nearest town!” Xie Bailu said with some anticipation. After sleeping in the open for several days, she missed a clean room and a soft bed.
She wanted to stay at an inn and have the waiter bring a large bucket of hot water for a comfortable bath!
As for other plans, she would decide after she had seen and understood more. She could finally experience this new world slowly and gradually, like a normal transmigrator.
Meanwhile.
Ling Song suddenly opened his eyes. He was quiet for a moment before sitting up and casually stretching his legs.
Then there was a long silence.
He looked up and saw the evil cultivator’s body not far away, killed by having his Violet Mansion torn open and his Nascent Soul crushed.
He had lost control again.
Spiritual energy was running rampant in his body, but Ling Song didn’t care at all. He sensed for a moment and, not detecting any trace of Xie Bailu, finally frowned.
Had she been killed by him after he lost control? No, when he entered the evil array, the spiritual sense imprint he had on her was gone.
Ling Song scanned the area and didn’t see Xie Bailu’s body. Similarly, he noticed that the storage bag on the evil cultivator was also gone.
He smiled.
She didn’t even forget to take the supplies before running for her life.
Before she left, she must have seen him unconscious. Why didn’t she kill him? Was she afraid of the Ling family’s revenge? Or did she think that if she didn’t kill him, he would remember her kindness and let her go?
Ling Song sat for a while longer before getting up, stretching his limbs, and retrieving his life-bound sword, which had fallen nearby.
Seeing his disheveled state, he clicked his tongue. This was his last set of clothes. Since he started chasing Xie Bailu, his clothes had been used up particularly quickly.
He definitely had to continue looking for her. She still had his Five-Star Cauldron. But before that, he had to find a place to rest and recuperate.
How strange. No one had ever pushed him to this point.
He began to look forward to their next meeting.